commodity is an economic good or service that has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them
Despite what some people seem to believe, a PHL-PHX and a PHL-DFW flight are not equivalent (E.g., "how can PHL-DFW be more expensive than PHL-PHX??? It's longer!!!!"). They are not commodities. You're not buying a ticket to fly 1284 miles. Origin, destination, departure time, aircraft type, etc., etc. all differentiate flights.
In the very few instances where this was the case (East coast shuttle, anyone), these barriers did come down.
Originally Posted by
seadog83
Why shouldn't you be able to do this with airline tickets?
Because those aren't the terms of the item that the airline is selling. It's as simple as that.
If they wanted to make them resellable they could. But they don't. So you can't.
Anyone is free to offer gold for sale with a contract term that you can't sell it to anyone else. They chose not to.
Originally Posted by
seadog83
It seems that really the airline has all the benefits of every side here.
No one is forced to buy from them, so how do they have "all the benefits"? If no one likes what they're selling, no one will buy it. Then they'll change or go out of business. Other market participants can offer competing products and take their customers.